Two Saturdays ago, a friend of a friend mentioned that “given ISIS, maybe neither” New York City nor Washington, D.C. “is such a great place to be right now.” Moments after she left, I had the urge to bolt down the stairs, catch up to her, and say: “Whatever you do, don’t step off the curb. That’s where danger lies in American life. ISIS, not so much.”

Members of the family of the U.S. journalist killed by the Islamic State last month have told various media outlets that the Obama administration “threatened” them with criminal charges of aiding terrorists if they tried to pay a ransom for him.

President Obama marked the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the grounds of one of the hijackers’ targets, the Pentagon, commemorating the occasion with rhetorical flourishes that invited Americans to see themselves as fearless and ever on the up-and-up.

For a variety of reasons, the recent war in the Palestinian territory has persuaded an increasing number of Israelis to give serious thought to emigration, according to one poll; in Gambia, the National Assembly passed a law to imprison people for life for “homosexual acts”; meanwhile, it’s important that the left condemn jihad as vehemently as it does Israeli occupation. These discoveries and more after the jump.

On Sunday, as the U.S. military announced that it had initiated airstrikes targeting ISIS in western Iraq, President Obama made an appearance on “Meet the Press” to give a sense of what he’ll have to say on Wednesday when he formally outlines America’s strategy for targeting the militant Islamist group.

As ISIS continues to draw zealous young recruits from the West to the fronts in Syria and Iraq, Michael Muhammad Knight, whom The Guardian has described as “the Hunter S. Thompson of Islamic literature,” tells of how his American upbringing almost made him into a warrior for jihad.

Reports that an estimated 2,000 Europeans have joined jihadists fighting for territory in Syria and Iraq are a reminder that feelings of loyalty are not givens and can be diverted away from one’s place of origin.

By continuing contradictory policies in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. has ensured that ISIS can reinforce its fighters in those countries and vice versa. So far, Washington has been successful in escaping blame for the rise of ISIS by putting all the blame on the Iraqi government. In fact, it has created a situation in which ISIS can survive and may well flourish.

In an eerie report on the treatment of Muslims imprisoned for alleged involvement in “terror-like activity,” the news agency Inter Press Service tells the story of Tarek Mehanna, a Pittsburgh-born Muslim currently serving a lengthy jail sentence.

In a report that seemed to escape everyone’s notice, Independent writer Patrick Cockburn describes the “spectacular resurgence of al-Qa’ida and its offshoots… despite the huge expansion of American and British intelligence services and their budgets after 9/11.”

Rachid Wahbi came to Syria from a Spanish slum, rushing toward death. And he didn’t plan to die alone. Wahbi killed 130 people in that suicide bombing on the al-Nairab military base in northern Syria on June 1 of last year, according to Spanish authorities. And the numbers get grimmer.

Officials are calling a fatal knife attack Wednesday on an unidentified man in southeast London an act of terrorism. Footage surfaced of one of the alleged assailants with blood-stained hands holding a meat cleaver and a knife and telling viewers to “remove” their government.

Mona Eltahawy, a prominent Egyptian-American activist and writer whose arms were broken in Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring, was arrested at a Times Square subway station after spraying paint over a controversial poster that has drawn broad condemnation for equating Muslims with “savages.”

So, the word got around this week that President Bush’s 2004 campaign manager and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has come out of the closet. “It’s something I wish I had done years ago,” he said.

Five young Muslim American men who went missing from Virginia in November and were arrested the following month in Pakistan were indicted on terrorism charges Wednesday. The accused claim they were tortured in custody and deny that they were trying to align themselves with al-Qaida-affiliated groups, according to the BBC.

Moammar Gadhafi has had it up to here with Switzerland. First they arrest his son on charges of beating up two servants at a luxury hotel. Then they pass a pretty horrible law banning mosque’s minarets. Now, Gadhafi has called for a holy war against the country, a move which has received almost universal denouncement.

Now a lot of folk will go along with the line that the Holy Father is so stupid—so utterly out of touch with Planet Earth—that he has no idea how disastrously his actions are received. Hmmm. Well, I wonder.

Just before the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, al-Qaida has released a lengthy videotape featuring the group’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, providing updates about how the holy war is faring around the globe and laying into Iran for “cooperating with the Americans” and with the American-approved governments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In this thought-provoking opinion piece from the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper, writer Correlli Barnett points out how, in waging his own brand of holy war, Bush (and, by extension, former British PM Tony Blair) failed to comprehend crucial lessons about war that historical examples have repeatedly borne out.

Could the Bush administration be invoking the ominous specter of al-Qaida—and suggesting the extremist group is gathering strength and preparing to strike—for political reasons? CNN’s Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware says Americans should watch out for rhetorical sleight of hand from the White House concerning the current threat level and the newly unveiled National Intelligence Estimate.